Luz y Vida (Light and Life) is a Communal Bank composed of 8 women and 1 man. All the members daily engage in their activities, which allow them to pay for their households’ expense, to provide for their families and to improve their economic conditions. They are nice and gentle people who still maintain and follow their culture and traditions. They live in the outskirts of Cuenca, a town with many places to visit and where it is possible to enjoy natural beauties. Thanks to its architectural beauty, Cuenca is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

Gloria Susana is one of the members od this group. She is 44 years old and she is a single mother of 5 children, aged 29, 27, 24, 21 and 19. He first two children have a job and they economically help her, two daughters are married and live independently and her youngest son is attending one of the schools in town. She lives in a rented house as she doesn’t have one of her own.

Gloria Susana has been engaged in selling clothes, shoes and various home products for one years; at the same time, she also breeds hens and “cuyes” (“cuy” is Quechua for Guinea pig), and she sells these animals in her community. She does not work fixed hours, but she works from Sunday to Sunday.

This is her second loan with her Communal Bank; the loan she is requesting will be used to buy shoes, clothes and home products to have a wider variety of products for her customers.

Additional Information

This is a Group Loan

In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

Kiva's Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower's loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.